Sublime in Antiquity

Detailed new account of the historical emergence and conceptual reach of the sublime both before and after Longinus.

List of contents

1. Introduction: the sublime before and after Longinus; 2. The art and rhetoric of the Longinian sublime; 3. The sublime before Longinus in rhetoric and criticism: Caecilius to Demetrius; 4. The sublime before Longinus in rhetoric and literature: Theophrastus to Homer; 5. The material sublime; 6. The immaterial sublime; Conclusion.

About the author

James I. Porter is Chancellor's Professor of History and Theory of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. An authority on ancient criticism and aesthetics and an important figure in classical reception studies, he is the author of The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, Sensation, and Experience (2010), Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future, and The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on The Birth of Tragedy (both 2000), as well as the editor of several collections. He is also co-editor of the Classical Presences series. The present book is the second installment in a trilogy, the aim of which is to bring back into focus ancient aesthetic thinking and to uncover its forgotten traditions.

Summary

The first book to break away from existing scholarship's dominant focus on Longinus and to outline an alternative account of the sublime in Greek and Roman poetry, philosophy, and the sciences, in addition to rhetoric and literary criticism. Argues for a tradition of sublime criticism that pre-existed and survived Longinus.

Product details

• Authors: James I. Porter, James I. (University of California Porter, Porter James I.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2015
• EAN: 9781107037472
• ISBN: 978-1-107-03747-2
• No. of pages: 714
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; HISTORY / Ancient / Egypt, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, Ancient Greece, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, HISTORY / Ancient / Greece, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Philosophy: aesthetics, Ancient History, Literary theory, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500, Ancient Egypt, BCE to c 500 CE, BCE period – Protohistory